when the baby came. She took the
baby with her."

"Oh," murmured Mrs. Dustin and she forgot the beer growing stale on the
counter, forgot the slot machines against the walls, forgot everything
but this man who for this minute stood out from a world of men with
this unhealed sorrow in his heart.

"And for bonny Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doon and dee,"

sang the famous singer softly and the proprietor turned his head away.

"It gets damn lonesome sometimes," he said huskily. And at that a
toil-worn hand touched his arm in healing sympathy and a little
shoemaker who had come out into the night with anger in his heart said
with a huskiness that rivalled the proprietor's,

"My God, man, don't I know!"

The minister played other tunes, then he pulled out his watch and
laughed and that ended the party. In a few minutes he was alone with
the proprietor.

When the last footstep had lost itself in the still streets the
proprietor turned to the big young man who was sitting on an ice-cream
table, carelessly swinging his feet.

"I feel so damn funny," said the proprietor, "and all shook up
to-night. And I don't know whether it all really happened or whether I
just dreamed it--the little woman with the blue eyes and the soft-faced
little guy. Say, parson, what were they after, anyway?"

"Williams," the parson made grave answer, "I rather think those two
were looking for their children." And Cynthia's son told the story of
Joe and Hattie and Mrs. Dustin and Peter as Green Valley had told it to
him. And when it was told the two men sat still and listened to the
little wind mourning somewhere outside.

"Yes--that's it. They were looking for their children. If mine hadn't
a-died that's maybe what I'd be doing now. Oh, God, parson, I'm in
wrong again. I've been in wrong ever since Annie died. If she was
alive I'd be working in a machine shop somewheres, bringing home my
twenty-two a week with more for overtime and going around with my wife
and the kid and living natural, like other men. My God," he groaned,
"the lights just went out when she went and I've been stumbling around
in the dark, not knowing how to live or die.

"I quit work the day after I buried her. What was the use of working
then? I had half a mind to blow in all I had but I couldn't. Seemed
like she was still there with me, trying to cheer me up. I slunk
around like a shadow for months. And then I got hungry for people. A
single man do